Total pages in book: 72
Estimated words: 70524 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 353(@200wpm)___ 282(@250wpm)___ 235(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 70524 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 353(@200wpm)___ 282(@250wpm)___ 235(@300wpm)
I smile at Maddox. He just nerded out a bit on me, and I love it.
He mentioned growing up in the public eye. That’s interesting. So his “family business” must have been something in local politics, or maybe sports. He certainly has the build to be a good athlete. Broad shoulders, toned muscles. Not to mention his diamond-cutting jaw, highlighted by his meticulously groomed scruff.
Maddox continues talking, but I can’t help staring at him. How gorgeous he is, how perfectly presented every aspect of his appearance is.
And… Oh no.
Someone else in my life was like that. So into appearances.
I’m thinking back to my mother.
The day she really went off the rails.
Now that I’m ten, Mum expects me to help with the work around the house. I do my own laundry, clean my own bathroom, and am in charge of washing the dishes after dinner.
We have a dishwasher. I don’t know why Mum insists on washing everything by hand.
I guess that’s how she grew up doing it, and she doesn’t trust the dishwasher to get rid of all the germs and food crumbs that are left behind every time we have a meal.
We had spaghetti tonight. Mum made the meatballs herself. They’re way better than any meatballs you can get in a restaurant, which all taste like they’re made of dog food.
Mum is a great cook. She uses lots of spices to accentuate the mix of ground beef and pork that she uses.
But, of course, spaghetti is a messy meal. So I have my work cut out for me while I’m on dish duty tonight.
Mum has a multi-step process for dishes. The first thing you do is put a big pot full of water on the stove to bring to a boil. Then you scrape any leftover food into the trash before organizing the dishes by type. Glasses first, and then plates, followed by silverware, leaving pots and pans for last. I don’t know why that’s the order, but Mum says it’s the way it has to be, and she doesn’t like it when I diverge from her methods.
After you scrape, you rinse the dish in the sink. Then you get out the dish soap and scrub it hard. All surfaces must be scrubbed. Front, back, edges, and undersides, paying special attention to hard-to-reach areas like rims and handles. Then the second rinse to remove the soap.
Then we sanitize. Remember that big pot of water? Every dish, once it’s been rinsed, scrubbed, and rinsed again, goes into the pot of water. I have special gloves that let me reach into the pot without burning myself. Each dish goes in for ten seconds before we pull it out, dry it with a lint-free towel, and put it back in the cupboard.
I’ve been doing dishes for a couple of months now. When I first started, Mum would look over my shoulder, guiding me through the process. But tonight she is letting me do the dishes on my own.
I go through the process with each dish. It’s become pretty routine at this point. I sing little songs in my head to pass the time. Pretty soon I’m on autopilot, and before I know it, an hour has passed and all the dishes are clean and in the cupboard.
Mum walks in the kitchen, smiling. “This was your first time washing the dishes on your own, sweetness. How did it go?”
I gesture to the cupboard, beaming proudly. “They’re all put away.”
“Wonderful.” She squeezes my shoulder. “Mummy is just going to do a little inspection, okay? Check to make sure that you did a good job.”
“Of course, Mum.”
Mum looks into the big pot where I sanitize the dishes in boiling water. She squints her eyes. “Alissa, honey, come over here and look.”
I peer over the pot of water. It’s no longer boiling, but the water is still hot. “Yes, Mum?”
Mum grabs a slotted spoon from a drawer next to the stove and plunges it into the pot, stirring it around. She pulls it out.
There’s a teeny-tiny piece of tomato skin on the slotted spoon.
I take a few steps away. “Mum, I swear, I made sure every single dish was cleaned fully before I boiled it. There’s no way the water got any food in it.”
“Alissa, my angel, I knew it was too soon for you to wash the dishes unsupervised.” She regards the slotted spoon, her eyes narrowed. She looks back at me. “You’ll have to wash all the dishes again. In fact, to be safe, we should assume that every dish in the cupboard is now contaminated. You’ll have to wash all of them, not just the ones we used for dinner this evening.”
I fight back tears. I thought I did such a good job. “But Mum, that’ll take all night. I’ve got homework I need to do.”